Night
by storm-petrel
Summary: Happily ever afters. She snorted. They didn't exist... Happily ever afters were traps, tricks, carrot-on-a-sticks.


**_As with all my stories I have a love/hate relationship with this one. I'm not really sure what it's meant to be, but read :) and if you want, review :) twould be muchly appreciated.

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It had become her refuge, the one place she could be alone, just her and the night. Sometimes she just needed to get away from the whispers, and the rumours, and the smother, stifling heat of the people who pretended to understand or tried to care.

By day she was strong, fiery, capable Rose Weasley, who stared down anyone who dared to whisper, who'd been in more fist fights than most of the sixth year boys. Who held her boyfriend's hand all the way to the Great Hall, and he sat with her at the Gryffindor table and joined in with the laughter. Who, on receiving the Howler from her dad about her choice of boyfriend, calmly flicked it off the table as it exploded.

No one knew that she didn't sleep that night and stayed on the Astronomy Tower until the morning, worrying, and wondering if she was doing the right thing.

And all because she cared.

It was easier not to care, she reflected as she stood on the edge. Caring meant losing, and losing meant pain, and she didn't think her once-so-strong mind could deal with that kind of hurt again.

She used to care. Used to care about her family, and especially her father. Until she fell in love. Love? She didn't really know what love was. She used to. When she was younger love meant damsels in distress, and brave knights, and happily ever afters. It wasn't so simple now. Was it really worth the pain?

Happily ever afters. She snorted. There was no such thing. Happily ever afters were traps, tricks, carrot-on-a-sticks. They twinkled tantalisingly close only to be whisked away when you reached for them.

She was quite the cynic now. She always used to see the best in the world before it turned on her and left her broken on the inside, and cold on the out.

She was a girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, and her emotions in her eyes. She was so terribly, terribly naïve. She didn't realise, didn't notice, that wearing your heart on your sleeve made it easier to be crushed, and emotions plain to see were emotions easily exploited. She found out the hard way.

She still believed in love though, although it wasn't the beautiful, flowery, wonderful feeling she had thought, and hoped for. Love hurt. Love burned. Love wormed it way inside you like a parasite and destroyed you from the inside out until you were just a hurting, walking, breathing shell, an echo. And she was too tired to fight any more.

So she locked her crushed heart back into her chest, and she scrubbed the bloodstains off her sleeve, and she took her eyes and polished them until no scrap of feeling remained to be exploited, and she built up her walls and swore not to feel again, not to care again, because her bruised heart couldn't take any more battering.

So she went through that year with her heart locked away in an impenetrable box, something to = be taken out occasionally and looked at before being carefully replaced.

It wasn't something to be used.

She isolated herself from the people who were close to her, but she didn't care. They did everything they could to make her come alive again, but she didn't care. They hurt inside for her, but she didn't care.

But she isolated herself from Scorpius, and she cared. Scorpius did everything he could to make her come alive again, and she cared. Scorpius hurt inside for her, and she cared and ached and her heart was battered despite its protection, and she realised that it hurt more to try not to care than it hurt to care.

So she took her box out of her chest, and unlocked it and gently removed her heart, and put it back where it belonged on her sleeve, and she dirtied her eyes with her emotions again, and ripped down the walls she had so carefully built around herself.

And slowly, Rose Weasley returned. She tossed her head of flames again as she laughed again. She snuck out to deserted classrooms with him again. She ignored letter after letter from her father, and Howler after Howler she flicked off the table, and no longer did she spend her nights alone on the tower.

But eventually the Howlers stopped arriving, and the letters became more peaceful, and she really thought her father was accepting her choice. But then they came back.

So she sent her own letter home for the first time in months, and told her father that if he didn't accept her choice he could go to hell for all she cared, and that it was her life and there was nothing he could do about it.

It took a long time for him to reply, but the letter came in the end and Scorpius held her while she read it, and she sighed in relief. It was alright, her mother had finally won over her father's age old prejudices, and she could love again without fear of it all being ripped away.

And maybe, just maybe, happily ever afters were possible. Maybe they weren't traps, or tricks, or carrot-on-a-sticks.

Maybe she had her own one just there.

But her cynicism didn't leave her all at once. She was still wary about her glorious, sparkling, happily ever after, and she always would be, but in the meantime she learned to care again. And her bleeding heart stopped weeping, and started beating again, and she let herself close to people again.

Maybe happily ever afters aren't possible, but she sure as hell was going to try and get there.


End file.
